King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays Part 25

"Enigma" was first presented at the Liberal Club, New York City, in 1915.

_A man and woman are sitting at a table, talking in bitter tones_.

SHE. So that is what you think.

HE. Yes. For us to live together any longer would be an obscene joke.

Let's end it while we still have some sanity and decency left.

SHE. Is that the best you can do in the way of sanity and decency--to talk like that?

HE. You'd like to cover it up with pretty words, wouldn't you? Well, we've had enough of that. I feel as though my face were covered with spider webs. I want to brush them off and get clean again.

SHE. It's not my fault you've got weak nerves. Why don't you try to behave like a gentleman, instead of a hysterical minor poet?

HE. A gentleman, Helen, would have strangled you years ago. It takes a man with crazy notions of freedom and generosity to be the fool that I've been.

SHE. I suppose you blame me for your ideas!

HE. I'm past blaming anybody, even myself. Helen, don't you realize that this has got to stop? We are cutting each other to pieces with knives.

SHE. You want me to go. . . .

HE. Or I'll go--it makes no difference. Only we've got to separate, definitely and for ever.

SHE. You really think there is no possibility--of our finding some way?... We might be able--to find some way.

HE. We found some way, Helen--twice before. And this is what it comes to. . . . There are limits to my capacity for self-delusion. This is the end.

SHE. Yes. Only--

HE. Only what?

SHE. It--it seems . . . such a pity. . . .

HE. Pity! The pity is this--that we should sit here and haggle about our hatred. That's all there's left between us.

SHE. (_standing up_) I won't haggle, Paul. If you think we should part, we shall this very night. But I don't want to part this way, Paul. I know I've hurt you. I want to be forgiven before I go.

HE. (_standing up to face her_) Can't we finish without another sentimental lie? I'm in no mood to act out a pretty scene with you.

SHE. That was unjust, Paul. You know I don't mean that. What I want is to make you understand, so you won't hate me.

HE. More explanations. I thought we had both got tired of them. I used to think it possible to heal a wound by words. But we ought to know better. They're like acid in it.

SHE. Please don't, Paul--This is the last time we shall ever hurt each other. Won't you listen to me?

HE. Go on.

_He sits down wearily_.

SHE. I know you hate me. You have a right to. Not just because I was faithless--but because I was cruel. I don't want to excuse myself--but I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't realize I was hurting you.

HE. We've gone over that a thousand times.

SHE. Yes. I've said that before. And you've answered me that that excuse might hold for the first time, but not for the second and the third. You've convicted me of deliberate cruelty on that.

And I've never had anything to say. I couldn't say anything, because the truth was; too preposterous. It wasn't any use telling it before.

But now I want you to know the real reason.

HE. A new reason, eh?

SHE. Something I've never confessed to you. Yes. It is true that I was cruel to you--deliberately. I did want to hurt you. And do you know why? I wanted to shatter that Olympian serenity of yours. You were too strong, too self-confident. You had the air of a being that nothing could hurt. You were like a G.o.d.

HE. That was a long time ago. Was I ever Olympian? I had forgotten it.

You succeeded very well--you shattered it in me.

SHE. You are still Olympian. And I still hate you for it. I wish I could make you suffer now. But I have lost my power to do that.

HE. Aren't you contented with what you have done? It seems to me that I have suffered enough recently to satisfy even your ambitions.

SHE. No--or you couldn't talk like that. You sit there--making phrases.

Oh, I have hurt you a little; but you will recover. You always recovered quickly. You are not human. If you were human, you would remember that we once were happy, and be a little sorry that all that is over. But you can't be sorry. You have made up your mind, and can think of nothing but that.

HE. That's an interesting--and novel--explanation.

SHE. I wonder if I can't make you understand. Paul--do you remember when we fell in love?

HE. Something of that sort must have happened to us.

SHE. No--it happened to me. It didn't happen to you. You made up your mind and walked in, with the air of a G.o.d on a holiday. It was I who fell--headlong, dizzy, blind. I didn't want to love you. It was a force too strong for me. It swept me into your arms. I prayed against it. I had to give myself to you, even though I knew you hardly cared. I had to--for my heart was no longer in my own breast. It was in your hands, to do what you liked with. You could have thrown it in the dust.

HE. This is all very romantic and exciting, but tell me--did I throw it in the dust?

SHE. It pleased you not to. You put it in your pocket. But don't you realize what it is to feel that another person has absolute power over you? No, for you have never felt that way. You have never been utterly dependent on another person for happiness. I was utterly dependent on you. It humiliated me, angered me. I rebelled against it, but it was no use. You see, my dear, I was in love with you. And you were free, and your heart was your own, and n.o.body could hurt you.

HE. Very fine--only it wasn't true, as you soon found out.

SHE. When I found it out, I could hardly believe it. It wasn't possible. Why, you had said a thousand times that you would not be jealous if I were in love with some one else, too. It was you who put the idea in my head. It seemed a part of your super-humanness.

HE. I did talk that way. But I wasn't a superman. I was only a d.a.m.ned fool.

SHE. And Paul, when I first realized that it might be hurting you--that you were human after all--I stopped. You know I stopped.

HE. Yes--that time.

SHE. Can't you understand? I stopped because I thought you were a person like myself, suffering like myself. It wasn't easy to stop. It tore me to pieces. But I suffered rather than let you suffer. But when I saw you recover your serenity in a day while the love that I had struck down in my heart for your sake cried out in a death agony for months, I felt again that you were superior, inhuman--and I hated you for it.

HE. Did I deceive you so well as that?